1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing control apparatus, a printing control method, and a computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program. More specifically, the invention is suitable to be used in printing document data in which management information for managing the use of the document data is embedded.
2. Description of the Related Art
The introduction of Microsoft Windows® Vista, which is an operating system (OS) manufactured by Microsoft Corporation, made drastic changes in printing systems. More specifically, a new printing system made based on an Extensible Markup Language (XML) Paper Specification (XPS) was introduced which keeps compatibility with a printing system made based on a Graphic Device Interface (GDI) (browse Print-Architecture and Driver Support [online] by Microsoft Corporation, [searched on Jan. 30, 2008]). XPS is one of electronic document formats. The XPS document is comprised of various parts such as an XML that stores information of a document structure, drawing information, and print settings and a binary resource such as a bit map and a font.
As is described in the above-referenced literature, the XPS document has two aspects. One is a spool format when the document is printed, and another is a normal document. When attention is drawn to the aspect of the document, the XPS document is used like a PDF file according to Adobe Systems Incorporated for the purpose of publication and/or distribution of various documents. Further, the XPS document containing a print attribute can be used as a format for a print job. After Windows® Vista was released, a printer device capable of directly printing out XPS documents arrives on the market. A typical method to print XPS documents using the printer device capable of directly printing XPS documents is to print the document by a conventional printer driver.
As is described above, XPS documents have the aspect of the document. Therefore, it is expected that printing is increasingly performed using a printing utility or the like in which the XPS document is directly transmitted to a printer device, without utilizing a printer driver. XPS documents are a generalized format. Therefore, when the printing utility is utilized, a function to change the layout of an XPS document and a function to provide color processing can be realized with ease. With such a printing utility, it becomes possible to store an XPS document in a file after the layout of the XPS document has been changed. Further, it may be possible that a prepared XPS document is shared in a Sharepoint Portal Server® produced by Microsoft Corporation, which allows a printer device to directly print out the XPS document existing on a server.
Further, in conventional print processing in an office, the number of sheets having been printed by the printer device is managed by each department (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-207661). Accordingly, with the spread of XPS documents, it is expected that print management is performed for every department also under such a user environment that XPS documents will be directly printed out by printer devices.
In the conventional printing managed by respective department as is described in the above-referenced literature, a print job is carried out together with department management information such as a department ID and a password. When the XPS document is used as the format of the print job, the printing will be carried out, including the department management information within the XPS document that is job data.
In the case that the XPS document is output to a printer device using a printing utility without utilizing a printer driver, the department management information is embedded in the XPS document by the printing utility. When the XPS document is output in the form of a file using the printing utility having a department management function, it is possible that department management information may be contained in the XPS document.
If the XPS document containing the department management information thus generated is shared by a Sharepoint server or the like, the XPS document containing the department management information may be passed on to a third party, which can directly print out the document with the printer device. Alternatively, there is a problem that the number of printing sheets cannot be counted correctly for every department if the XPS document is printed out by the third party using other department management information unrelated to the third party.